China Real Estate Weekly Wrap

July 26 – New home prices in Guangzhou rose 18% year on year in 1H 2013, much faster than its growths of GDP and disposable incomes, said the city's official property trading website, G4c.laho.gov.cn. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Guangzhou's new home prices rose 4.7%, 8.2%, 11.2%, 13.7%, 15.5% and 16.5% year on year respectively in the 6 months through June 2013, where the rates were the fastest nationwide in 5 months.

July 24 – China is working on policies to reform its land management system amid the rapid pace of urbanization, the China Securities Journal reported. The focuses include resolve housing problems for rural migrant workers and to offering sufficient land supply for development.

July 24 – Proceeds from land sales in Beijing have exceeded that of 2012, driven by purchases by state-owned companies, Deutsche Bank said in a China Property report. Land sales proceeds added up to 85 billion yuan as of July 23, 2013, well above the 65 billion yuan recorded in 2012.

July 23 – Investment in Shanghai's property market rose 21.7% year on year to 126.89 billion yuan in 1H 2013, representing 54.8% of the city's total fixed asset investment during the same period, according to the local statistics bureau. Property sales volume jumped 39.5% year on year to 11.07 million square meters, including 9.53 million square meters in residential space, which was up 35.5% year on year.

July 23 – Home prices in China's tier-2 and tier-3 cities will probably rise 10% in 2H 2013, according to a survey by Standard Chartered Bank. Over 70% of the developers surveyed predicted price gains in home prices in tier-2 and tier-3 cities in 2H 2013.

July 23 – Property sales volume in China's 40 largest cities declined 1.8% week on week to 5.12 million square meters in the week through July 21, 2013 following 10.4% and 18.6% week on week declines in the previous two weeks, according to SouFun data. Sales volume in tier-1 cities, which represented 12.2% of the 40 cities' total volume, fell 3.7% week on week in the latest week. The 3 straight weeks of decline indicate the lasting impact of the recent credit crunch and stricter administrative curbing in tier-1 and larger tier-2 cities, SouFun said.

July 22 – Property sales in China's 41 largest cities were flat week on week in the week through July 21, 2013, UBS says in its Morning Expresso Asia report. Average weekly sales in July so far were 5% lower than in the same period of June and down 10% year on year. Currently, housing demand is driven by those seeking to live in bigger and better home in tier-1 and tier-2 cities, and the best selling homes are sized 100-150 square meters, according to the report.

July 22 – Home prices in Shanghai rose 2% week on week to 25,566 yuan per square meter in the week through July 21, 2013, according to Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center.

July 19 – The Guangzhou city government plans to roll out more property control measures as it expects home prices in downtown Guangzhou to rise further in 2H 2013, Sohu Focus reported, citing "reliable sources". Among the measures to be deployed will be restricting transaction volumes, sales volume and housing prices.

July 19 – Loans given to China's property market more than doubled to 1.3 trillion yuan in 1H 2013, representing 27.1% of total lending during the same period, according to central bank figures. Outstanding loans linked to property development and personal mortgage amounted to 3.26 trillion yuan and 9.07 trillion as of the end of June 2013, up 11% and 21.1% respectively from a year earlier.

July 19 – Close to 90% of Chinese households own at least one property and over 10% own two or more, according to a Peking University survey. An average household lives in 100 square meters, or 30 square meters per person. Peking University surveyed 57,155 people from 14,960 urban and rural households in Shanghai, Henan, Gansu, Guangdong and Liaoning.

July 19 – Property sales rose 25% year on year to 5.99 million square meters in Beijing in 1H 2013, according to the local statistics bureau. The growth rate was 55.7 percentage points slower than the growth in Q1 2013.

July 18 – New home prices rose in June from May in 63 of China's 70 largest cities, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Compared with a year earlier, 69 cities saw increases in new home prices in June, giving policymakers more room to curb property prices. Second-hand home prices rose in 55 cities if compared with a month earlier, and rose in 68 cities if compared with a year earlier. New home prices rose in fewer cities while dropped in more cities if compared with a month earlier.

July 17 – There were a total of 177,015 cases of financing where land was used as collateral in 84 major cities, involving a total gross floor area of 349,000 hectares, or 3.49 billion square meters and a total outstanding loan of 5.95 trillion, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources. The 4 largest state-owned banks were reportedly responsible for 45% of the total outstanding balance.

July 17 – Most banks in Shenzhen now offer only a 10% discount on first-home mortgage interest rates and very few still offer a 15% discount at a higher loan amount over 2 million yuan, Jrj.com.cn reported, after surveying more than 10 banks in the city. The discount used to be 30% for first-home buyers.

July 16 – Shopping mall rental growth in the five key retail areas in Shanghai have slowed down in Q2 2013, UBS says in its HK China Property Morning Post, citing data from DTZ. The average rent for the first floor of shopping malls in the key areas was 60.4 yuan per square meter per day, up 0.98% quarter on quarter but slowed from 2.1% in Q1 2013. DTZ forecast a large amount of supply in 2H 2013, putting more pressure on rental growth.

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